


hunter

by truethingsproved



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: (just briefly and in a nightmare), (not quite), Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Minor Anders/Female Hawke, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Dragon Age II Quest - All That Remains, i fell into this ship and now idk what to do with my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 04:02:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17594243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truethingsproved/pseuds/truethingsproved
Summary: “Have you no poetry in your soul?”“Probably not.” She grins, and the uncomfortable twist of her stomach smooths when he looks up at her and offers a smile in return. She knows the crook of those lips and the arch of his brows and she knows when the mirth in his eyes is real. If there is poetry in her soul it’s reserved strictly for him, but she can be clumsy and she thinks that the poetry should stay exactly where it is, rather than spill out into her wanting hands. The short version is – that smile isn’t his brightest, or his most brilliant, but it warms her from her core all the way to her fingertips and toes, and it makes her melt. She doesn’t know why.( Liar. She knows exactly why. )Inspired by the Wicked prompt, "Love makes hunters of us all."





	hunter

The first time she sees the phrase, it’s scribbled on a scrap of paper, a receipt of Varric’s settled bill for the month. He’s a good writer, and that’s never been in doubt; she’s seen enough of it to know that Varric is skilled, and that there is a privilege to being his muse that cannot be measured. It’s a good phrase, the sort that’s going to rattle around in her head for weeks, but in the moment, even though she knows that there is value, she can’t quite measure it, not yet.

     “What does this mean?  _Love makes hunters of us all_.” She has been sitting at his table – no, not at,  _on,_ legs tucked tailor-style underneath her and paper held in her hands. Katheryn can be demanding; she likes attention, particularly enjoys  _his_ , and she knows that settling accounts and writing letters explaining that  _no, thank you,_ they are not in need of any other investors into their expedition, they have found a suitable crew and will be going forward with them, is important. Still, she doesn’t like this, sitting here and waiting for him to look up at her, and she doesn’t know why.

     ( Liar. She knows why. )

     Varric leans forward, plucks the paper from between Kat’s fingers, and he shrugs. “Don’t know yet. But I liked it and I’m saving it until I do know.”

     “What are the lovers hunting? Each other? That’s pretty sick, if you ask me, but I know you like your tragedies.”

     “Haven’t you ever heard of metaphor?”

     “Metaphorically speaking, what are the lovers hunting? Because Da used to send me hunting when we were living in Lothering and after the number of times I’ve had to skin something I can safely say that hunting is disgusting and it’s not inspiring anything like romance.”

     “Have you no poetry in your soul?”

     “Probably not.” She grins, and the uncomfortable twist of her stomach smooths when he looks up at her and offers a smile in return. She knows the crook of those lips and the arch of his brows and she knows when the mirth in his eyes is real. If there  _is_  poetry in her soul it’s reserved strictly for him, but she can be clumsy and she thinks that the poetry should stay exactly where it is, rather than spill out into her wanting hands. The short version is – that smile isn’t his brightest, or his most brilliant, but it warms her from her core all the way to her fingertips and toes, and it makes her melt. She doesn’t know why.

     ( Liar. She knows  _exactly_  why. )

     He knocks his knuckles gently against the arch of her bare foot, boots having been toed off at the entrance before she climbed onto his table like a petulant cat or an overeager child ( is there a difference between the two? ) and her toes curl at the touch and the skin he’d touched is buzzing. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he promises, and that’s enough for her. She tries not to smile too widely when he puts the rest of his work away and turns his attention directly to her; there is something immensely satisfying to being chosen over his obligations. “Have you decided who you’re bringing?”

     “Bethany and Fenris, if he’s willing to tolerate being underground with us. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable but we’ll need at least one mage there and unless your brother’s been hiring them…”

     “He hasn’t. There aren’t exactly hordes of apostates looking for jobs that involve them going underground for weeks at a time and risking their lives on the uncertain promise of gold. Your sister’s a rarity.”

     He tucks the paper into one of his books for safekeeping and holds a hand out to help Kat down from the table; she doesn’t need the help but takes his hand anyway, reveling in the touch of his calloused fingers and his palm against hers. When he withdraws his hand and turns around to gather his things she stretches out her own, fingers spreading wide, as if to try and banish the electric tingle under her skin. 

 

* * *

There may not be poetry in her soul but it’s there in the way she moves.

     She’d tied her hair back but it’s falling out of place, the thin strip of leather she’d used to pull it back slipping. Her cheeks are flushed, a warm red against the lovely bronze of her skin, and her eyes are bright. It’s visible even here, in the Deep Roads, their path illuminated only by the light of Anders’ magic and the frankly horrifying thing in front of them. It’s a demon of some sort, and frankly, Varric could do without it – but he can’t deny that there is a grace to the way that Hawke all but flings herself from where she’d been standing to take a blow meant for Anders.

     Bethany hadn’t come. Leandra had shown up and insisted that if Kat had to go, she could live with that, but she wouldn’t lose another child – and Varric had pretended not to notice the flush in her cheeks then ( no poetry there, only grief; he doesn’t find her pain beautiful and has no intention of presenting it as such ) or the way that Leandra had left without saying goodbye, all but pulling Bethany out of her sister’s arms before heading back to Lowtown. She’d stood there for a moment, ashamed and wounded, before simply shaking her hair back and asking one of them to see if Anders wouldn’t come. They still needed a mage. 

     And it’s a move Varric knows well – Kat can’t stand to see her sister hurt, and so when presented with an option to either allow harm to come to Bethany or to use herself as a human shield, she usually defaults to the latter. And he’s seen the way she looks at Anders and so it’s no surprise that in their relatively short acquaintance she’s shown no hesitation to place herself between him and anything that threatens him, usually with that same look in her eye.  _Lucky bastard,_ he thinks good-naturedly, but he doesn’t quite know why. 

     ( Liar. He knows why. ) 

     His chest feels tight when he sees the way Kat goes down, the blood dripping from her lips as she coughs; she wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and she pretends that she’s  _not_  bleeding internally after a hit like that. Anders shouts something over the din and Varric can’t quite catch it, but he sees Kat smile at him – pained but unwilling to slow down – before she leans over to spit the blood from between her teeth. The look she gives him borders on adoration, and Varric is happy for her, he is, she deserves to find some measure of happiness after what she’s been through, but it doesn’t quell the slight nausea bubbling in his gut. 

     It does, however, keep him distracted long enough that his grip on Bianca falters, only for a moment, and his aim goes slack, and he doesn’t look up in time to see that the profane that had been targeting Anders a mere moment before has turned its attention on  _him._ He doesn’t see that, but he sees the way that Kat’s face changes, the way that the affection in her expression bleeds away in favor of fear, and he sees her move – even as Anders tries to hold her in place to heal her, even as Fenris comes bolting towards them. And he sees the way she places herself between someone she cares about and their imminent destruction,  _again,_ without a seeming concern for her own well-being. 

     The profane strikes down at him, and Kat catches the blow, letting out a sharp yelp of pain as her left arm goes limp and her right moves with shocking speed to strike at the demon. There’s a moment when the only sound is her breathing, heavy and wet, and then Varric lifts Bianca and shoots, over her shoulder, to kill the thing before it can hit her again. It crumbles to the ground, rocks falling and disintegrating, and Kat turns around long enough to grin at him and laugh before she collapses. 

     He drops Bianca just in time to catch Kat, and then Anders is there, eyes wide with worry, hands already glowing, staff abandoned on the stone floor of the thaig. Varric lowers her to the ground, hands careful, before he moves to open up the leather chest piece and pull it aside so Anders can heal her. The shirt beneath gets pulled away as well, Kat punctuating the moment with a wheeze of pain and a tight laugh. “Easy, boys,” she mutters through grit teeth. “There’s plenty of me to go around.”

     Anders tosses the shirt aside, resting his hands over her abdomen. “What’s the point of that armor if you’re still going to end up with ruptured organs?” he asks sternly, light pulsing through his fingertips and into Kat’s bruised body. “I’m going to start thinking you just like getting injured.”

     “Ah, you’re all cute when you worry,” Kat retorts, and she laughs, then winces. “Varric – are you okay?”

     “You’re an idiot,” Varric answers fondly. “I’m fine. Takes a lot more than that to do me in.”

     She pauses for a moment, frowns. “You dropped Bianca. She must be damaged.”

     She is. There’s a scuff on her that will take him ages to get out, and a deep scratch that’s going to be there forever. But Varric only shakes his head, and he knocks the back of his hand against hers. “Bianca’s fine, too. Nothing to worry about.”

     Maybe it’s his imagination, but the look in her eyes is familiar and fond, the same expression she wears when she’s looking at Anders. For his part, Anders seems to notice it as well, so perhaps that’s a point in Varric’s favor. He’s not losing his mind, if Anders is glancing between them with a furrowed brow that smooths as soon as Kat shifts her attention back to him to ask just how badly she’s injured (  _very_   _badly,_ Anders tells her,  _please stop doing that_ ). She smiles up at him, and suddenly Varric feels a bit ill again, and he averts his eyes, as if he’s looking in on something intimate. Fenris looks disgusted, and Varric can’t help but chortle at the expression he wears, but it doesn’t lessen the weight in the pit of his stomach, heavy and solid. 

     He couldn’t put an explanation to it, but the discomfort doesn’t ease, even as he and Fenris set up camp and Anders finally finishes his work on Kat, and Kat is able to sit up without help but still leans into Anders, shivering in just a breast band and her leggings as Anders shrugs off his coat to wrap around her shoulders while she works to fix the damage done to her armor. 

     ( Liar. He knows  _exactly_  why. ) 

     Kat is reluctant to let him go, when he says that he wants to make sure the camp is secure. She’d come with him if she weren’t so faint, but she does grab his hand in hers and squeeze tightly, equal parts thanks and worry. And when they come across a handful of profanes, stragglers from their last fight, Varric isn’t thinking about the things that usually drive him when he shoots at them, picks them off one by one; he isn’t thinking about his anger at his brother’s betrayal or the way they’d come after him before and his desire to  _survive_. He’s thinking about Kat, and the flecks of blood on her pale lips, and her body crumbling in front of him as she took a blow meant for him, and how cold her hand had felt in his.

     He won’t call it  _love_  but he calls it a  _hunt,_ because that’s what it is. He’s not surprised by the scene they find when they return to camp; Anders is nearly asleep, head on Kat’s shoulders, mana drained from healing her and eyes drifting closed every few moments, Kat back in her armor with the coat laid out across their laps and a deck of battered cards in her hands while she goes through the winning hands of Wicked Grace in a hopeless attempt to learn something. She looks up at the sight of them and she smiles, eyes bright and grin wide, and Varric doesn’t acknowledge the way his heart jumps in his chest or the way his knees suddenly feel gelatinous. 

     He agrees to take first watch, and Kat stays with him, and he tells himself that she’s sitting so close to him only because of the cold of the Deep Roads.

 

* * *

She hates the Amell mansion. She hates that her mother seems happier here, with one daughter locked away in the Gallows and the other practically a ghost, than she did in their hovel in Lowtown, when at least they were all together. She hates that she sees Gamlen  _maybe_  twice a month, and that Leandra won’t invite him to live there as well – it’s not as if they’re running low on room. She hates that her mother  _tsk_ s when she comes in and tracks in mud, and she hates that it’s so hard to find a decent fight in Hightown, and she hates how far she is from the Hanged Man. 

     Not that there aren’t perks to wealth. The mine is doing well, what with Kat’s regular interventions and the way that news of her advocacy on behalf of the Fereldans has spread, bringing other refugees to her door in search of a job and with the promise of truly exceptional work. There is, as well, the  _dizzying_  amount of money they’d managed to bring back from the Deep Roads – gold and gems and various other things for which Kat has little patience, but they pay the bills and keep her warm and allow her to send Gamlen money, even if he’s too proud to take it. 

     And this means that she’s able to employ people herself – spies and bards, the seedier sort whom Leandra always pretends aren’t in the house when they are, all of them with a single charge. Find Bartrand Tethras, and let her know where he is. For her part, she’s mostly over the betrayal; sure, she almost died, but she almost dies regularly enough that it’s starting to lose its shine. What she can’t forgive is what it’s done to Varric.

     Varric, whose smiles have been a bit less frequent and significantly more strained now that he’s left to clean up his brother’s messes. Varric, who always has something else he has to handle, another letter to write or another apology to make on Bartrand’s behalf. See, Kat could forgive the betrayal – well, not forgive, but certainly move past it – if it had been only  _her_  that had been hurt as a result. But when it’s Varric who’s sleeping less, Varric forced to take on a role he’s never wanted, Varric suffering from the loss of a sibling that is, in its way, even worse than what she’s felt? That, she thinks, is unforgivable. That, she thinks, earns a man being hunted to the ends of the earth. 

     It can’t just be because it’s Varric, and she tells herself that regularly, but with each day that he smiles less and frowns more, she finds herself inquiring after her little legion of irregulars to get updates on their progress, desperate for some news that will bring that crooked grin back to his face and the humor back to his voice. It should be for her own revenge – but she knows by now that it isn’t.

     ( He can’t possibly know that it isn’t. )

     When she hears news of Bartrand, it’s unexpected – sightings in Lowtown, a dwarf matching Bartrand’s description only coming out at night. She wears a black scarf around her mouth and tucks herself into the city’s shadows, watching and walking and waiting.

     But there’s nothing. Nothing at all, except a signet ring that looks all too familiar at one of the Lowtown stalls, which she catches sight of as the sun rises and the vendors begin to set up. She pays quite a lot for it – there’s another surface dwarf there who wants to buy it, who loudly proclaims that it has the seal of nobility, and she’s forced to outbid him then and there before the eager merchant shoves the ring into her grasp and shakes her hand vigorously, the disappointed dwarf shooting a scowl her way before he moves on to another stall.

     “Where did you get this?” she asks, only after she’s already purchased it.

     “Oh, a while ago – ’fore that expedition into the Deep Roads. You were there, weren’t you, serah? Belonged to the leader. Tethras. Sold it to me for five sovereigns – forgot I had it until he tried to get it back from me about a week ago. He says he’d give me the five sovereigns back with interest and I says, oh, no, you won’t, I’ll take a profit on it and nothing less, and you shouldn’t’a sold it if you didn’t want to lose it. So I tell him, twelve sovereigns, since it’s obviously so valuable to him, and he’s ranting and raving and he says he don’t  _have_  twelve sovereigns on him and he looks like he’ll take a swing at me but I pick up this club I keep here, you know, for breaking sticky fingers, and he runs.” 

     Kat lets out a short grunt, looking at the ring that had cost her more than double that to get back – and why hadn’t she bothered to ask him this before she made her purchase? “You certainly got your profit, friend. Have you seen Bartrand since?”

     “ _Ah,_ no. Tried to attack me, he did, but I got out this club – ”

     “Yes, the finger-breaking one. Well done.”

     She slips the ring onto her finger as she leaves, turning around to head directly to the Hanged Man. She considers, for a moment, telling the merchant to forget she was there – but Bartrand is long gone, and likely not fool enough to return. 

     The door to Varric’s suite is unlocked and open, just a hair – someone must have just brought him breakfast. When Kat pushes the door open, there’s an extremely pretty serving girl presenting him with a tray, and Kat would consider taking issue with the way the girl’s making eyes at Varric if she weren’t so aware that  _she_  is probably doing the exact same thing. 

     “Care for a bit of company?”

     He looks up at her and he smiles, and Katheryn’s heart stutters at the sight of it. “How could I ever say no to that?” The serving girl flashes an annoyed glare in Kat’s direction at that, but Kat only slips past her, stopping to sweep down and press a greeting kiss to Varric’s cheek before she takes a seat beside him. The girl leaves, pulling the door closed behind her with perhaps more force than is necessary, and Varric chuckles. “What brings you here, then? Besides pissing off the people who make my food.”

     In answer, she lifts her hand, the one wearing the signet ring, and waits for him to recognize it. It doesn’t take long; he grabs her hand, pulls it close to his face to examine the ring. Her cheeks glow at the gesture and she has to stretch her fingers as straight as they can go to stop herself from lacing them into his. It’s only because he’s so focused on the ring that it escapes his notice, she’s sure – that, and the way that color rises to her cheeks.

     “This was Bartrand’s. Well, my father’s, actually. Bartrand had to pawn it, to pay for the expedition – there’s the Tethras crest. And there’s a scratch, right here, from when my father punched someone square in the jaw for making eyes at my mother, when they were newlyweds.” He doesn’t often talk about his family; and right now, he sounds almost like a boy, excited and free of the weight of his brother’s absence. “Where did you find this?”

     “I’ve been looking for Bartrand.”

     That surprises him even more than the ring did. Varric frowns, releasing Kat’s hand, and she turns her face to look at him, already missing the contact.

     “He owes you,” she says by way of explanation. Not “us” –  _you_. “After what I did, you deserve closure. And I have more money than I know what to do with, so I’ve been – digging. Anyway, I got a lead that he was in Lowtown, and I wanted to see if it was true. I didn’t find him, but I did find this.” She doesn’t mention the hefty cost – she only slips it off her finger and holds it out to him.

     “I’m sorry,” she adds after a beat. “I was hoping I could bring you more than this.”

     Varric takes the ring from her palm and slides it onto his own finger. It strikes her, suddenly, what this must mean to him – what wouldn’t she give for something of Malcolm’s? Something of Carver’s? They’d fled Lothering in such a hurry that most of their keepsakes had been abandoned; Malcolm’s favorite book and his wedding ring were the only things with sentimental value that they’d saved. They had absolutely nothing of Carver’s. 

     “Thank you.” For a moment, his voice is thick with emotion. It’s not a tone she often hears from him. He’s seen her weeping before, and raging, and everything in between, but he’s always guarded, always careful. This may be the most intimate moment they’ve shared, and it’s worth every coin she spent, all the sleepless hours, the fight she’d gotten into when someone tried to steal from her and she’d gotten too bored and tired  _not_  to give them a sound thumping. “I didn’t think I’d see this again.”

     If she hadn’t realized it before, she realizes it now, at the sound in his voice and the softness in his eyes, but he is something incredible and she is absolutely lost. 

     They spend about an hour together, Kat sharing the details she’d gotten of Bartrand’s time in Kirkwall. Varric is continuing her hunt, merging it with his own; when he knows something, he’ll tell her, he swears. She leaves only when she’s too tired to keep her eyes open, Varric accompanying her back to Hightown. She’s fast asleep when he gets back to the Hanged Man and takes out a book he hasn’t touched in years, opens the cover, reads the scrap of paper tucked inside, and he smiles. 

     As she sleeps, she dreams of darkspawn and Deep Roads and something warm and familiar leading her home.

 

* * *

Isabela insists that they’re sleeping together. It’s the only explanation, she swears, for why Kat and Anders have been so functional lately, why the stranglehold of their unresolved tension seems to have, well,  _resolved_  itself. She’s bet them each a sovereign that this is the case, and she’ll never pay if she’s wrong, so Varric’s not sure why he bothers listening to her, but he can’t get her voice, or the image of Hawke (  _his_  Hawke? ) and Blondie, out of his head.

     There are a thousand potential explanations. Anders finally decided to smoke a bit of that elfroot he’s always drying in his clinic. Kat is actually sleeping with Isabela, and this is all a clever ruse to throw them off the trail. Someone brought Anders a box of kittens and he’s redirected all of that frankly  _terrifying_  energy to looking after them. Kat has actually killed every Templar in the city and the Chantry’s just not admitting it, to maintain an illusion of control. But as much as Varric would like to imagine that Anders has just had a series of nice days or that Kat has taken up meditation, nothing seems quite so likely as Isabela’s initial hypothesis.

     So he listens. He watches them, when they’re all together, and Anders and Kat are so painfully polite and pleasant to one another that it’s making Varric a little ill. They say  _please_  and  _thank you_ and  _excuse me,_ and when Kat shows up at the Hanged Man in simply a tunic and a pair of leggings that are so tight they look painted on Anders doesn’t even have the decency to ogle her like he used to. ( Let the record show that Varric still doesn’t understand the appeal of human legs –  _legs for days,_ honestly, who would want that? – unless it’s Kat’s legs in question. In her case, he’s grown rather fond of them. ) 

     It’s during these several days that Varric realizes he actually misses when they were obviously pining over one another, because it was so commonplace it became a part of the scenery and, thus, easier to ignore. This friendly banter between them – and all of it entirely friendly, no less  _!!_  – is making him want to rip out his hair. Finally, he comes to the conclusion that Isabela was right, and hands her a sovereign with a scowl, and that should be that.

     But Varric Tethras is not a man content to live on rumor and speculation alone, and so he’s foolish enough one day to ask. It’s a rare day that they’re spending together, alone on the Wounded Coast – there’s a spot here overlooking a drop so steep it’ll kill you long before you hit the ground below, and it’s her favorite place to sit, which means she brings him there whenever she can. The sun is bright, and the smell of salt is actually clean and not tinged with fish and piss, and she’s sitting with her head tipped back, hair fluttering behind her in the gentle breeze and eyes closed under the sun’s warmth.

     It’s a perfect day. Of course he decides to ruin it.

     “So,” he asks, and he regrets it already but he has to know. “You and Blondie?”

     Kat opens her eyes and turns to him, eyebrows arched. “Are we just naming people you know?”

     “No. You two. Are you – ?” 

     He raises his eyebrows and then curses himself for it. Kat considers him in silence, expression inscrutable; it’s only in a rare moment that she’s not readable to Varric, and this one seems to last forever. Finally, she leans back onto her elbows, squinting in his direction.

     “You,” she says, “have known me for three years and you have never once asked me about my sex life. I don’t know if I should be offended that it hasn’t come up before, or concerned that it’s come up now.”

     “Curiosity, Hawke. Indulge me.”

     She frowns at that; he calls her by her first name when they’re alone, and that’s how she prefers it. Even he’s not sure why he did it; all he wants is to know the truth, and then be properly moody about it. She considers him, frown deepening, before she answers.

     “No. We’re not.”

      _Well._ He wasn’t expecting that. It doesn’t make him  _giddy,_ because he’s not twelve years old and he is instead in relatively good control of his very adult and mature emotional responses, thank you very much. It does, however, make him feel lighter than he did this morning, when Katheryn had shown up at his door and all but pleaded for a quiet adventure that required no violence, no death, and more sand than anyone could possibly want. It’s been days since he’s felt so light; ever since he’d begun his hunt for the truth, he’s felt the weight of it hanging over him, threatening to drop at any moment.

     “Is he honestly that unaware?” Varric asks, because flattery is safer than leaping up and doing a jig. 

     She only laughs, the sound sweet and hiccuping. “No. He knows. We talked about it all last week, at length – he’s known since I got here, and he’s felt the same way just as long.”

     It’s an enigma. Varric can’t imagine someone looking at her and hearing that laugh and saying  _no, thank you, I’ve had enough._

     “Anders is dedicating himself to something bigger than the both of us combined. I don’t think I’m capable of not caring about him, and I wouldn’t  _want_  to be, but – nothing happened, and nothing’s going to happen. I’m grateful to know him. I’m with him as far as he goes, for the mages – that wasn’t ever just about him, it was because it’s the right thing to do. But some things just don’t have the right timing, I think. I told him that he has a budding career as an anarchist he has to worry about, and he agreed; maybe in another universe we could have been something great. I could have been here at just the right moment, or our tragedies could have fit. I’m grateful to know him,” she repeats, and she tips her head back again, eyes falling closed. “And I’m grateful to count him a friend. But I’m not going to ask him to turn his back on what he believes so we can have an easier go of it. You don’t do that to someone you love.”

     She’s never actually said it out loud – at least, not to him. Varric watches her with curious eyes, studies the peaceful set of her mouth and the curve of her exposed throat, tries to will his tongue to move. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, and damn him, but it’s only half true.

     “I’m not. I fell in love with a good man, and it’s ending before it starts, but that’s what needed to happen, for the both of us.” He doesn’t allow himself the spark of hope fizzling in his chest at that –  _for the both of us_. 

     “And you’re still – ?”

     “I think so. I don’t think it’ll  _stop,_ I think it’ll just… change. I think it’s already started. Matter of time, now – but no broken hearts to heal,” she teases, and her closed eyes crinkle at the corners and she scrunches her nose. “And here’s your doomed lovers for the book; add in some longing glances and you’ve got a bestseller. I’m a  _very_  sympathetic hero.”

     “ _Shit,_ Kat.” He catches the way she lights up at the use of her first name, as if things have fallen back into place. “That’s unusually healthy of you.”

     “I know. I think I’ve grown. Don’t put that in the book, though; it’ll ruin me.”

     He laughs, and she joins in – he tries to file the sound of her laughter away, so he can put it to words later ( like bells? no. like wind? no. like the sea? no. something bigger, something  _bigger_  – ). She sits up, and she casts a sidelong glance in his direction. 

     “Are you sorry you fell in love with Bianca?”

     He hasn’t told her anything about Bianca, but he’s sure it’s not too hard to figure out. Still, he’s not expecting the question, and it sets him on edge. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “The answer changes depending on when you ask it.”

     She doesn’t ask anything else. Instead, Kat shifts closer and leans into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, her hand finding his in the sand between them.

 

* * *

Leandra’s death changes her. It’s to be expected; no one lives through that and comes out unscathed. That first night is the worst. She sends everyone home – or, rather, asks Orana to send them home, because every time she opens her mouth she feels ill – and she spends most of the night sitting in silence on her bed, one of her mother’s dresses in her hands. She cries, but without noise; Bodahn and Sandal and Orana and even the dog – named Mal, for her father – try and check on her, try and convince her to eat, to sleep. She doesn’t answer. 

     The silence is only broken when she does, finally, fall asleep. She curls around that dress, fingers fisted in the fabric, and she dreams vividly. ( She wondered once if it had something to do with all the magic in the Amell and Hawke lines, but nowadays she just thinks her unconscious self to be particularly cruel. ) She dreams of her mother’s pale white hands, so different from the golden brown of her own, the deeper brown of her father’s. She dreams that she is laid out on one of Quentin’s tables and her mother is standing above her, stitched together like patchwork but still made up of all her own parts. 

     Dream-Leandra plucks at her, takes out a rib, a part of her spine. “This is no good,” she says, tossing her daughter’s bones aside, “too weak, too slow. Should have been here to protect Bethany – ” And there go her legs, picked away and dropped in the scrap heap, her hands following, “ – and should have stopped Carver – ” her lungs are next, and she feels like she’s drowning, “ – and we can’t forget your father – ” Leandra empties her daughter until she’s nothing more than a cavernous hollow and a fragile, withering heart.

     And then Leandra smiles, eyes glassy, teeth rotting, and says, “I knew you’d come for me. I’ve always been so proud,” and Katheryn wakes screaming, hyperventilating, flinging her mother’s dress from her hands. 

     The door to her bedroom is thrown open and she expects to see Orana, or Bodahn – she’s even hoping against hope that it’s Gamlen, come to forgive her for the unforgivable sin of her human weaknesses, all of which she’d scrub from herself if she only knew how. No; it’s Varric on the other side of the door, his eyes wide with surprise and bleary with sleep, his leather coat and his boots abandoned somewhere and even Bianca nowhere to be found. 

     “Kat,” he calls, “ _Kat_ , it was a dream, that’s it, just a dream.” There’s pain in his voice, and it makes her feel sicker, and she bows her head and fists her hands in her hair and she tries desperately to breathe. ( But didn’t Leandra pluck out her lungs already? )

     She feels calloused hands over hers, breathes in the familiar scent of ink and leather and a dusky red wine. She always wondered why that was what she smelled when she breathed him in; he doesn’t drink wine often, and the Hanged Man is more likely to reek of whiskey and vomit than anything else, but he reminds her of libraries, of the days she’d spend in the Chantry in Lothering hunched over a book, tucked away in a corner while they said mass, of the night before Ostagar when she and Carver huddled together with a wineskin shared between them and Father’s favorite book in their hands. He reminds her of family, of home, and this house feels like a crypt. 

     She doesn’t know how it happens but she’s on her knees, weeping like a child, gasping out a litany of  _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_  and Varric doesn’t waste any time in kneeling down beside her. She feels him stroke her hair back, feels him gather her closer to him and hold her while she is wracked with great, hiccuping sobs. She trembles, and shivers, and she cannot stop.

     Bodahn and Orana do come, but Varric gestures for them to leave, promises that he’s got her, that she’s going to be okay. It could be five minutes, it could be an hour, but the shaking subsides and she runs dry on tears and her head is pounding. He helps her stand, brings her downstairs; Bodahn must have been tending the fire, because it’s roaring when she reaches the parlor. ( She would roll her eyes when Leandra called it that; too pretentious, she’d insist. ) Kat only stands there, arms crossed, robe pulled tight around her, while Varric disappears, returning a moment later with some water for her.

     “I thought everyone left,” she says finally, voice hoarse, and Varric offers a humorless chuckle. 

     “And leave you here alone? No; I’ve been down here.” He gestures beside them, to the armchair in front of the fire; there’s a blanket on the floor in front of it, and it looks just disheveled enough to suggest someone sleeping fitfully there. “I figured you could use the backup,” he continues after a moment’s silence. “I’ll leave if you’d rather – ”

     “No. Please. I’d much rather you stay.” Her voice is soft, and plaintive, and Varric looks at her like his heart is breaking.

     “It doesn’t get easier, not having her,” he murmurs, so low she almost can’t hear him. “You get used to it, but it doesn’t get easier, no matter how complicated things were.” She’s expecting platitudes or prayers, like had been offered after Malcolm’s death, but Varric doesn’t utter either. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to stay.”

     She reaches out to take his hand in hers, and he obliges, lacing their fingers together. She can’t be urged back to bed, no matter how much he tries, but she does sit on the floor beside his chair. Neither of them speak; he simply sits beside her, toying idly with her hair, until she falls asleep, half across his lap. 

     His presence over the next few days is necessary. Without it, she’s certain she’d simply crawl back into her room and refuse to come out. He handles Leandra’s things, putting them in her bedroom so that Kat doesn’t have to touch them herself. He handles the messengers who bring with them the half-hearted condolences of all the nobles in Kirkwall who had been happy to watch Leandra struggle until she had enough coin to erase the sin of marrying one apostate and giving birth to another. He even handles the flowers, making sure to discreetly dispose of any and all lilies sent by well-meaning fools. 

     He even brings Gamlen to her, the day before the funeral.

     That night is the first that he abandons the armchair in favor of a bed – the house is huge, there are plenty of spare rooms, and he mentions only briefly that there’s a crick in his neck and a cramp in his shoulder; Kat knows, then, not to expect him where he’s been, though her heart does sink when she comes out from her bedroom and doesn’t immediately catch sight of him over the railing. It’s late; he’s surely asleep. Even she would be if not for Mal; the mabari is standing outside Leandra’s room, letting out a pitiful wail. He doesn’t understand, yet. 

     She can’t calm him and she can’t cure his sorrow and so instead she walks aimlessly along the hallways, and when she catches sight of the warm glow of a fire under one of the closed doors, she knocks, quietly enough that Varric can ignore her if he’d like, or can sleep through it.

     “Door’s unlocked,” he calls, and she pushes it open, hovering in the doorway until he looks up. He’s sitting in the bed, a book in his lap, a mug at his side; Kat feels a surge of warmth and affection for him, thinks to herself that he looks rather at-home here, nearly as much as he does at the Hanged Man. He looks up at her, eyes soft. “Can’t sleep?”

     “No. Do you mind – ?”

     “Not at all.” He shifts over in the bed to make room, and she nudges the door closed behind her before coming to sit beside him, knees drawn to her chest and arms wrapped tightly around her legs. “Was it the dog?”

     Kat only nods. 

     “Poor bastard. It’ll take him some time to learn.”

     Anders would urge her to talk. So too would Isabela, in her own way. She’s sick of prayers and well-wishes when what she wants is her mother back. She fishes in the pocket of her robe and pulls out a note she’d found before going to bed, holding it out for Varric to read.  _I’m so proud of you. Love, Mother._

     He looks it over and lets out a humorless laugh. “Fate does have a sense of humor.” He pauses for a beat, then – “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped this.”

     “I know. At least, I think I know.”

     He doesn’t push. They barely speak. He simply sits beside her, reading his book while she reads over his shoulder, and when she starts to nod off, head bowed, he lifts the covers over her, lets her settle in beside him. Her hand reaches out for his, like it had that first night, hunting through the blankets and sheets – but he finds her first, holds her as if she’s a woman drowning and he’s pulling her onto a raft.

     He stays the next night, and the next; when he does leave, with a squeeze to her hand and a kiss to her cheek and a promise that he can be back here in a moment if she needs him, she stands in the empty bedroom, the space colder than any room has any right to be. She doesn’t sleep.

 

* * *

When they find Bartrand, maddened by lyrium and violent beyond measure, Kat is there, and it’s clear in her face how badly she wants to punch him. Her fists are clenched at her sides, and her eyes are wild and angry, but she keeps her hands stilled, and that, Varric thinks,  _that_  is the mark of a true friend. 

     She doesn’t interfere when Anders heals him, even though it’s only for a moment. She doesn’t interfere when Varric insists that he’ll find a place for him, try to heal him. The only thing she does is sit down beside Bartrand, weapons strapped at her back, looking tired but not angry. “Go on,” she says, “get whatever you need. I’ll stay with him until you come back.”

     He doesn’t leave, of course, but if there’s anyone he’d trust with his brother, the last living piece of his family, it’s her. 

     When they ship Bartrand to a sanitarium in the middle of the night –  _Bartrand wouldn’t want anyone seeing him like this,_ Varric insists, Kat is there, and she simply stands beside him as they watch his brother being taken away. She’s been involved at every stage – finding the sanitarium, finding healers to work with him, finding someone discreet to transport him. 

     It makes sense, then, that she’s there for the end of it, though Varric isn’t sure why she’d care what happens to Bartrand after everything. When he asks her why, she shrugs one shoulder. “I really don’t care what happens to him,” she says simply. “I care about  _you_.” 

     They don’t talk about it again, but he thinks about that when they stand in Hightown in the dead of night and she rests a hand on his shoulder, an anchor, a promise. 

     And when the city is burning around them, Kat is there, and he wishes so badly that she wasn’t. But she doesn’t seem to have anything resembling a self-preservation instinct, and so she throws herself headfirst at the flaming buildings and the Qunari forces striking civilians down while they run, and when she climbs up those steps into Hightown, leaving behind a trail of Qunari corpses, she looks like a goddamn vision, hair loose and blood smeared across her nose in a way that almost looks deliberate and a blade in each hand and a  _power_  in her eyes he’s never seen before.

     He watches while she protects the Circle mages, embraces her sister with relief. He watches while she defends the First Enchanter and stands between him and the Knight Commander. He watches while she  _charges_  a Qunari force and he shoots anyone who gets close enough to touch her, Bianca quivering in his grasp. 

     He watches while this vision, this  _fool,_ agrees to single combat with the Arishok, all to save Isabela – who, frankly, should have kept running. 

     For a man so skilled with language, he’s at a loss when she stands in front of him, adjusting the leather armor – it’s unnecessary, he knows, because the Arishok’s blade will cut right through it. “Wish me luck?” she asks, and Varric simply stares at her.

     “Don’t die.” It’s more a plea than anything. He couldn’t bear watching her die. 

     The fight is glorious. It’s the sort of thing that poets and bards should write epics about, the way she darts around him, her agility and speed very nearly a match for his strength and his will. She is a performer, at times, and he hates her for it when she only barely escapes the force of his blow – and he fears for her when she doesn’t. But even the most glorious of battles have an end, and they all know as they draw closer.

     She stands in front of the Arishok, blood dripping from her teeth, eyes blazing. He rushes at her, and she’s quick but she’s  _tired_ , and so she’s not fast enough. His greatsword comes crashing down over her, sinking deep into her shoulder, and she  _screams,_ dropping to her knees. There’s blood everywhere. Beside Varric, Anders tenses; Fenris even moves to block him from interfering, knowing that any interference will surely lead to her death. 

     Varric can only stare at her, on her knees, eyes on the Arishok’s, right arm limp and useless at her side. He pulls the sword up and Varric nearly vomits at the sickening sound of the blade being drawn out from Hawke’s body, and he’s about to deliver a final blow – Anders is shouting, and so is Isabela, and Fenris is silent in horror, and Varric leans forward with a sudden hope.

     The look in her eyes is fleeting, but he catches it. The Arishok lifts his blade and prepares to strike her head from her body and Kat pushes forward, plunges the blade in her right hand into the back of his knee. He roars as she rips it free, pushing herself up to stand, and it’s a quicker death, Varric thinks, than the Arishok deserves: the dagger finds a home deep in his throat, blood pouring from the gash she rips open across his neck, and Katheryn Hawke is unconscious and on the ground before they can reach her. 

     Anders is able to stop the bleeding long enough to get her home. The Circle sends several healers, all of whom work night and day to try and save Kat’s arm, but the damage cannot be undone. Varric knows this the moment he sees her in her bed, face pale and sweating, arm nearly severed, healers fretting and debating while Anders pushes every bit of magic in his body into Kat.

     He stays only long enough to press a lingering kiss to her forehead and whisper a promise that he’ll be back, and then he’s gone. 

     He writes a letter, sure it’ll go unanswered, determined that it does not. _~~My friend~~_  but Kat is something else, isn’t she?  _ ~~My friend~~_  and she has been for a long while, there’s no doubting that  _ ~~Someone important~~_  he feels sick for too many reasons to count.  _I need you,_ he writes, and he hates himself for writing it, but it’s true. His hand is sure, even if he loathes every last word. For something lesser, for someone else, he’d let it lie.  _This is more important than the rest of it_

     He gives the messenger an obscene amount of gold to get it to her as quickly as possible, before he goes back to the mansion. Within a week, he has a very tired messenger, and a reply. 

      _Working on it._ Nothing more. 

     By the time he has her response in his hand, Kat has lost her arm. 

     “An infection,” Anders explains, and he looks thinner, and there are dark circles under his eyes. “Couldn’t be saved if we wanted to save her.” There’s another Healer watching over her now, so he can rest; he’s already collapsed once and they want to avoid it happening again. “ _Maker_.“ He takes a long drink from the mug of tea Orana had brought him, and he looks at Varric, and he looks lost. “I don’t know if we can save her at all.”

     “We can. We will. Has she woken up yet?”

     “Only once, for just a minute. She called for her father.” Anders pauses, then – “She called for you, too. Where were you?”

     Varric hesitates before answering. “Doing some hunting,” he says, and that’s the end of it. Anders sleeps for a few hours, gets something solid in his body, and Varric takes up watch over Kat’s unconscious form, the scrap of parchment held tightly in his hand. 

     It’s another three weeks before it’s delivered to him. She’s awake by now, and in absolute agony; the injury is healing, but slowly, and every day is a challenge. Her arm had been the worst of her injuries, but not her only injury; too many of her bones are broken, too many of her organs have bled, and all the magic in the world can’t rush what she needs most.

     She’s angry, too – not at Anders, or any of the healers, or even at Isabela, but at the Arishok and at her own fragility. There aren’t any jokes, then, and Varric misses it more than he can say.

     The hunt pays off, though; a package is delivered with no note, no acknowledgment of who sent it. Sandal takes the package and wanders off, only to return a few hours later, and hand it to Varric. The house is quiet; everyone is asleep, even Kat, and so there’s no one there to see Sandal’s bright smile or the shock on Varric’s face when he opens the long wooden box.

     It’s exactly what he’d asked for, and more – the arm is made of silverite, strong enough that it won’t break to pieces in a fight, not so heavy that she’ll never be able to use it, or swing it. And then, Sandal’s contribution – veins of lyrium, bright blue and glowing, from where the arm would attach at the shoulder down to the fingertips. There’s a leather harness, but Varric ignores that, looking at Sandal instead with bright and excited eyes.

     “Good work,” he says, and Sandal beams.

     “Enchantment!“

     It takes a moment for Kat to wake when he gently shakes her left shoulder, but she does, and she sits up slowly, painstakingly and waits for him to light the candles at her bed so she can see. He doesn’t wait, doesn’t waste any more time, simply sets the arm across her lap.

     “I did a little hunting around for it,” he says, “and it’ll be a perfect fit. We’ll talk to Blondie about how to attach it. Sandal did some tinkering; it might even be functional.”

     She simply stares up at him for a long moment before laughing, bright and loud enough to wake Anders down the hall, and Varric doesn’t think he’s ever missed a sound as much as he missed this.

* * *

The procedure is a long shot, but Kat insists that she’d rather take her chances than do nothing. Varric heads back to the Hanged Man while Anders, with Orsino’s help, attaches the arm, and he pulls out a blank sheet of paper and begins to write.

     The receipt from three years ago catches his eye as he hands the letter to the messenger he’d used before, and promises him that there’s no urgency, this time around. He thinks he knows what it means.

     He’s back at her side before she wakes, and he’s there when she finds a way to move her fingers for the first time, and he’s there when she laughs again, brighter than before. It’s another couple of weeks before she’s able to leave bed for more than a few minutes, and a solid month before she can pick anything up, but with each passing day she’s stronger, her laugh a little brighter, and it’s  _something._  

 

* * *

As soon as she can, she climbs onto the roof.

     It’s her final, ultimate test of what her new arm can withstand – swinging herself up, carrying herself along. And it’s a painful test, but it’s one she passes, after a year of relearning how to move. The stars in Kirkwall’s sky are bright and unfamiliar – she and Malcolm would lay out in the fields in Lothering and he would teach her the constellations, but she’s at the wrong angle, and Malcolm isn’t here to guide her eyes.

     So she makes them up, when she can’t identify them, spins wild stories of their origins to herself, and she’s in the process of picking out the stars to make up the Greater Scorpion’s tail when she hears an all too familiar voice.

     “Someone said they saw you going out the window and I thought,  _sounds like Hawke_.”

     Kat turns to him and she beams, holding her left hand out for him to take. Varric’s hand is as warm and familiar in hers as any could be, and she tugs lightly until he sits down beside her. It’s the change that’s been the hardest for her to remember to make –  _metal doesn’t_ feel – but she’s remembering, more and more, recreating her own reality in a new image.

     “I was able to get up here on my own,” she reports, and if she sounds proud of herself, it’s because she is. Varric laughs to himself, settling in comfortably next to her, tucked against her side, their hands still joined. 

     “You didn’t think it was a little soon to try?”

     “I did.”

     “But you did it anyway.”

     “Obviously.” She doesn’t entirely understand  _how_  the arm is attached, only that it  _is_ ; she’s chalked it up to general magic and Sandal’s special brand of strangeness, and she’s happy to let it lie. “I haven’t gotten a good look at the sky since before the Arishok. I missed it.”

     “Found anything interesting?”

     She lifts her right hand, points it directly above her. “That cluster right there kind of looks like my dog after I catch him chewing on my pillow.”

     Varric snickers, and when he turns his eyes back to Kat, she’s smiling. There are new scars across her face, new shadows under her eyes, but she feels at peace. She very nearly feels  _whole_. 

     “I wasn’t awake for a lot of what happened after the Arishok,” she says slowly, “but I was aware of some of it. I thought I was going to die.”

     “Trust me,” Varric scoffs. “You weren’t the only one. I’d have hunted you down in the Void and brought you right back here.”

     Easier, she knows, to treat a subject like this with some levity. Still, she doesn’t laugh, and her expression doesn’t shift; she believes that if such a thing were possible, he would. ( Even if such a thing  _weren’t_ possible, she thinks he’d do it all the same. ) And so Kat simply leans forward, and he doesn’t move away.

     Five years, she thinks, five years of wanting and waiting, five years of lying to herself and telling herself over and over that it wasn’t this way. Five years of wondering what this would be like, and it’s better than anything she’d have come up with. Varric’s lips are a little chapped, and the scruff along his cheeks and jaw is a bit longer than usual and it scratches, but his mouth opens to hers in a rush of warmth and he tastes an awful lot like coming home.

     There are no groping hands making quick work of his tunic or her robe, no hungry lips and teeth seeking to map out what had been forbidden before. She releases his hand to bring her own to curl against his cheek, fingers tangling in his hair, eyes falling closed; he moves to put his hands at her waist, pull her closer as if he can’t bear the distance between them. The first kiss becomes the second, the third, and five years she’s waited, five years she’s  _wanted,_ and it feels as natural as breathing, as though she’s been doing this all her life. 

     The earth is shaking and the heavens are parting and all of his romantic tropes are playing out around them, she’s sure, and this feels big, bigger than anything else she’s ever done – and she kisses him, and she draws him as close to her as she can, and she  _kisses him_. 

     The whole of the world around them is forgotten and when she pulls back from him he smiles, as if he’s been waiting for her for just as long.

     And so she releases him and stands, walks across the roof until she’s right above her bedroom window, where she’d climbed up from in the first place. There is wonder in her eyes and a warmth in her chest and she turns back to look at him, tilting her head and grinning.

     She turns back to the hunter and calls, “Come and catch me.”

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt from gregory maguire's phenomenal _wicked_ – "love makes hunter of us all." many many thanks to ofexaltations and pugfaced on tumblr for their help !!
> 
> kat is my go-to for hawke. i normally pair her with anders, but i sort of fell into her and varric, and now i love it, so much. so this is where i live now, in dragon age, crying forever about hawke.


End file.
